I am a Revolutionary. I raise my fist on a daily to show solidarity. And though there is nothing romantic about bloodshed. There is honour in standing up for what you believe in. We are part of a generation that is being called upon to shift the world toward new beginnings, to mend the damage that has been done by those who came before us, who have shaped the world we were born into. It is our turn to do the shaping. And the time, is now. Revolution is evolving, and we, this generation, must empower ourselves to overstand that we are catalysts for real and meaningful change.
I believe a part of this, is about re-discovering our roots, remembering and re-member-ing the parts of us that have been lost. To put value before cost. Learning how to put community over the individual, nature over economy, sustainability over profit, heart over head. These are the shifts that we need to make, first within ourselves and then move forward to shift the energy of the world.
My hero, Grace Lee Boggs, (who is a 96 year old revolutionary who lived through critical moments in US history including the civil rights movements as an active participant) writes about these principles in her book The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century. The first chapter in this incredible book is smilingly titled “These Are the Times to Grow Our Souls”. And I want to dedicate this blog post to her and her incredible wisdom, strength and courage.
These ARE the times to grow our souls.
We as human creatures have estranged ourselves from our human-ness, and have started to become robotic. Number crunchers, slaves to the economic system, and worshippers of the culture of materialism.
Grace points out to us, that we must re-connect with nature, and use the arts as a tool for empowerment. I couldn’t agree with her more. Just as a seed needs soil and rain to nurture it to grow, our souls also need nutrients to grow.
Many of us are still sleeping, and our soul energy is trapped somewhere under the Louis Vuitton bags and Jordan sneakers, the aspirations for fame and fotune… as we are slowly becoming products, selling not only our time and energy, but ourselves and our identities… as a result our souls have become lost somewhere in this mix, unable to express its brilliance.
Earlier today I tweeted @suntherealsun “the next north american #revolution will call upon us, a rekindling of our spiritual connection to nature/earth and artistic expression”
I believe that the Arts, when in its pure form, is a channel for the voice of the soul.
Grace Lee Boggs also speaks about the need for our generation to re-connect with nature. To learn to grow our own food, to learn the true meaning of sustainable living. This is beyond putting the cans and paper into the right recycling bins (Thank you also to Futoshi Sensei for redefining sustainable living in this way, during our Sustainable Lifestyles course on SWY 24!) This is about a fundamental shift in the way we live our lives! The earth is in a state of emergency, as Grace says in the interview below, we are in a “planetary crisis”… So what are we going to do about it? She offers some deep insight into this conversation in the video below.
So, I have an idea, and for now it is just an idea, and I’m hoping that I’m not the only one with this idea (I’m sure I’m not), and I hope you who is reading this, and the people around me and people everywhere will sooner rather than later tune into this frequency and energy as well (and some perhaps already have and are forging forward! if you are one of these people, please contact me!)… and this idea is that we need to integrate somehow art and nature together… Somehow, reconnect with nature and at the same time reconnect with the voices of our souls through art and nurture these both to blossom, in an integrated fashion.
For example, learning how to connect to nature in a practical way, through such things as farming, or growing herbal medicines, etc. and then channeling these learnings and becoming one with them, and feeling them on a soul level, as it is channeled through art (music, poetry, dance, visual, etc). Creating a new culture of existence. A culture that values and is connected to the spirituality of nature, walks with hands and feet that preserve, respect, and builds sustainability, and expresses freely the creativity and wisdom of our souls, to create meaningful dialogue between the generations, and a platform and path for the future generations to follow that heads in the direction of true prosperity, happiness, sustainability, and the truth of how to live a meaningful existence.
Maybe I’m an idealistic dreamer with stars in her eyes… but my heart and my brain start dancing and buzzing with excitement at the potential of these prospects. And that, I know, is something real.
There is much work to be done. And many paths to carve, and we as this generation who is alive and fit at this critical moment in history, must not be afraid to be creative, innovative, brave, and revolutionary.
Revolution. Over time I have come to re-define the word revolution for myself and the way that I understand it, live it, and move within it. With recent uprisings in the Arab world, and revolutions that have happened throughout history, many people associate this idea of revolution with bloody guerrilla warfare, protesting in the streets, throwing molotov cocktails and rocks at tanks and police, and so on… and understandably so. History and present-day is filled with these types of revolts. And this is real, and the people at the frontlines of these uprisings should be recognized for their courage and bravery for acting and speaking out against oppression.
But we as people who are fighting for change must also be innovators, challenge the notions of past, broaden our perspectives and open our minds and hearts to encompass something bigger, wiser, holistic, and lasting. Its not enough to fight back in anger, point blame, and seek to take over power. Seeking to take over power and acting out in anger for me is not true revolution. Though it is Crucial and important to raise our voices in order to raise awareness, it cannot stop there. Revolution in a holistic sense i think happens through education, through art, community projects, dialogue, genuine human connection, through hugs, through laughter. As the age old Gandhi saying goes “Be the change you wish to see in the world”.
Grace Lee Boggs writes and speaks about the Evolution of Revolution. Just as we evolve, our movements must evolve. And we are at a time when the fate of the world, of the planet, depends on us evolving into our humanity. Evolving our consciousness to feel, breathe, connect, with our true selves, our souls, and the earth that supports us.
I will close off this blog with an excerpt from Grace’s book The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century. “Chapter 1: These are the Times to Grow Our Souls”
“These are the times that try our souls. Each of us needs to undergo a tremendous philosophical and spiritual transformation. Each of us needs to be awakened to a personal and compassionate recognition of the inseparable interconnection between our minds, hearts, and bodies; between our physical and psychical well-being; and between our selves and all the other selves in our country and the world. Each of us needs to stop being a passive observer of the suffering that we know is going on in the world and start identifying with the sufferes. Each of us needs to make a leap that is both practical and philosophical, beyond determinism to self-determination. Each of us has to be true to enhance our own humanity by embracing and practicing the conviction that as human beings we have Free Will … To become truly human and to really know Truth, people discovered we need to summon up all our mental and spiritual resources, constantly expanding our imaginations, sensitivities, and capacity for wonder and love, for hope rather than despair, for compassion and cooperation rather than cynicism and competition, for spiritual aspiration and moral effort. Instead of either/or, reductive, dualistic and divisive, or “blaming the other,” thinking, the movement affirmed the unity of mind and body and the spiritual with the material. It advocated a consciousness that rejects determinism – the belief that we are limited by the past – and repudiates all absolutes. Instead, the movement promoted a consciousness that finds joy in crossing boundaries, in naturalistic instead of supernatural, and strives for empowerment rather than power and control … We are in the midst of a process that is nothing short of reinventing revolution. For much of the twentieth century the theory and practice of revolution have been dominated by overarching ideologies, purist paradigms, and absolutist views of a static Paradise; arguments over which class, race, or gender was the main revolutionary social force; and binary oppositions between Left and Right. Big victories have been prioritized over small collaborative actions that build community and neighbourhoods: the end has been valued over the means. We rarely stopped to wonder how much this view of revolution reflected the capitalist culture that was dehumanizing us … Art can help us to envision the new cultural images we need to grow our souls.” – Grace Lee Boggs
